Thursday, March 12, 2015

Okay, bragging
time. In case you need a reason to have any faith in my picks for race winners,
I am pleased to give you one. Here are the results of today's fourth stage of Paris-Nice
on one of the cycling fantasy leagues I play in. The first image shows the 12 riders
I picked to finish high in today's mountaintop finish on the Croix de
Chaubouret. The second image shows the results of the leagues' 397 players today.
My team is named "bkSuperbas", after the old Brooklyn baseball club.

Considering the field of climbers at the race, and his
recent performances, I don't think anyone would fault me for picking Kelderman,
he just didn't quite have it today. And I'm guessing everyone had Majka as a
pick today. The talented Polish climber, and last year's Vuelta a España King of
the Mountains, finished in 4th place overall at the tour of Oman a few weeks
ago, after finishing 4th on the queen stage up Green Mountain.

Monday, March 9, 2015

The 2015
edition of the always-thrilling Tirreno-Adriatico World Tour stage race begins
on Wednesday, and already the race has seen major changes. The third WT stage
race of 2015 was to be the first showdown between the four top Tour De France
favorites: Chris Froome of Team SKY,
Alberto Contador of Tinkoff-Saxo
Bank, Vincenzo Nibali of Astana, and
Nairo Quintana of Team Movistar. On
Monday, Team SKY announced that their team leader and race favorite, Chris
Froome, would be pulled from the startlist due to a chest infection. So that
four-way showdown will have to wait. Last month, Nairo Quintana was forced to
miss the start at the Vuelta a Andalucia, after crashing in the Colombian
National Championships. That race was supposed to have been the first meeting
between the Colombian and Contador and Froome. Perhaps the deferred suspense
will build toward an even more thrilling Tour De France, this July.

In addition
to the TA race's GC favorite pulling out, the top sprinter, Marcel Kittel of
Giant-Alpecin has been scratched as well. As has another in-form sprinter, Tom
Van Asbroeck of the Lotto-Jumbo team. Plenty of talent remains on the roster however,
to contest the seven stages that stretch from sea to sea, across the breadth of
Italy.

Alberto Contador comes back to defend his 2014 T-A win

The other big
change is the removal of the opening stage 22k team time trial. Heavy downpours
and high winds are to blame for the organizers' opting to change the stage to a
short prologue. The opening stage prologue will be a quick 5.7k individual TT
now.

Favorites for
the overall General Classification include the aforementioned Contador, Nibali,
and Quintana, but two other riders who might have something to say about the GC
this week include Rigoberto Uran (Etixx-Quickstep) and Bauke Mollema (Trek
Factory Racing). Domenico Pozzovivo (AG2R) and Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) might
also be considered typical favorites in a climber-friendly race, but the two book-end
time trial stages could create some challenging time deficits for the pure
climbers to overcome.

The race also
includes three sprint stages, though one will be an uphill sprint finish; a
mountainous stage 4 that ends with an uphill sprint after a 6k descent; the
mountaintop finish on stage 5 will provide the climbers with their best
opportunity to gain time they may lose in the TTs. The 194k stage 5 finishes on
top of the category-1 Termenillo (16k at 7.3%). The final stage is a pan-flat
10k Individual Time Trial.

Greg Van
Avermaet and Daniel Oss of BMC are among the fast finishers who can excel on
the tougher, uphill sprint-finish. So are Nikki Terpstra, Zdenek Stybar, Edvald
Boasson Hagen, Nathan Haas, Sep Vanmarcke, Pipo Pozzato, Simon Geschke, Jens
Debusschere, Jurgen Roelandts, Luca Paolini, Jelle Vanendert, Mathieu
Ladagnous, and Daniele Bennati. If Peter Sagan doesn't start to show better
results after this race, it may be time to start worrying. The big Classics
races he is targeting are right around the corner...

*Lloyd Mondory returned a positive out-of-competition test for EPO in February, so he is scratched.

Starts with a
short hill at about km10, then flat for 60k; then low rolling until km139; then
two big climbs: the Poggio San Romualdo (10k at 7%), and Monte San Vicino (11.5k
at 7.1%; tops out at km182, 26k to the finish;

The San Vicino climb profile, stage 4

After the San Vicino descent, it's
up and down to the final categorized climb, which is ridden twice. The
Crispiero climb is a steep 3k, with a 15% max near the top. The first ascent
tops out with about 19k to go, before the descent, and second ascent. The
second and final climb tops out with about 6.25k to go, mostly downhill, until
the final few hundred meters uphill to the finish line in Castelraimondo.

The stage-4 finish circuit

Stage 5: 194k MTF from Esanatoglia to the cat-1 Terminillo (up to
1675m up the 2216m-high ski mountain; 16k long at 7.25% average grade).

It's a pretty
steady 7-8% until the final km, which flattens out on top. Three other
categorized climbs along the way.

Stage 5 profile

The Terminillo, stage 5 summit finish

Stage 6: 210k mostly flat; Bunch sprint, possibly reduced;

Three little
bumps in first 150k (just 1 cat'd climb, around km131 (around 5k, maybe around 5%?)).
Final 68k mostly flat, 2 laps of a 14.4k circuit, final 4k are pan-flat.

Stage 6 profile

The final TT has very few corners

Stage 7: Pan flat 10k ITT;

Not very technical, very few turns. Almost straight out and back, will
favor power TT guys. Malori, Durbridge, and Cancellara should excel.

Overall Route
Breakdown:

2 bunch
sprints (stages 2 and 6)

1 uphill
sprint (stage 3)

1 MTF (stage
5)

1 climby
classics/escapee stage (stage 4)

1 long-ish
TTT (stage 1)*

2 short, flat
ITTs (stages 1, 7)

Assessment:

The
opening TTT is important; the winner will probably hold the leader's jersey
until stage 4 or 5. The two strongest TTT teams on paper look like OGE (Best GC
hope: Yates) and TFR (Mollema). EQS, SKY, TCS, MOV, and AST are capable of
limiting time losses in the TTT for their leaders, Uran, Froome, Contador,
Quintana and Nibali, respectively. Purito, Pinot, Pozzovivo and Rolland may not
be so lucky.